Assassination (1987) – A Review

Some bad guys are out to get First Lady Jill Ireland. Luckily she’s being guarded by tough, no-nonsense secret agent Charles Bronson. The bad guys won’t stand a chance!

The secret agent and First Lady might not like each other, but through a series of explosive, over-the-top action scenes you can bet they’ll soften towards each other before the end credits roll.

Directed by Peter Hunt, Assassination is another disposable Bronson action flick brought to us by the fine folks at Cannon Films. Unfortunately, it isn’t as cheesily fun for a brainless Saturday night actioner as some of his other outings.

Cannon was notorious with it’s cheapness. They loved to cut as many corners as possible when making a movie.

So, Assassination attempts to do the most with what it had. It’s not exactly a rousing success. I did think some of the inside DC sets were adequate, along with the obvious use of stock footage. Those were the only aspects this had to give the allure this was some big time political actioner. It’s not enough.

There’s no getting away from the eye-rolling shots of palm trees in downtown Washington DC. Or the presidential parade that looks like something a small town would have with the local girl scout troop leading it. I bet they stole some of the shots that have DC monuments in the background too.

It does help that for the majority of the movie Bronson and Ireland are running around in desert towns. The filmmakers probably felt they had to get out of DC or it would break their bank – or their creative devices to try to sell it.

Chuck fans should be warned that this is not a hardcore actioner like the usual Bronson/Cannon fare. Assassination was rated PG-13, so it doesn’t quite deliver on the outrageous brutal killing that fans want to see from him.

I guess they hoped the movie might have been a more mainstream hit and attempted to appeal to a broader audience. It didn’t work. Assassination bombed at the box office. It’s often cited as one of Bronson’s worst movies. They should have stuck with an R rating and had Bronson unload unmerciful amounts of ammo on the bad guys

Assassination is also notable that it was the eighteenth and final onscreen pairing of Bronson and wife Ireland.

The story itself is ludicrous. Bronson gets wind that Ireland’s life is in danger. Apparently her and the Prez’s marriage is more a political cover than what the public knows and now seeking re-eleciton the Prez feels he’ll easily win if he’s a widower. I don’t know. I guess.

The plot is breezed over and is just an excuse for Bronson and Ireland to hit the road and be chased.

They’re riding motorcycles, they take a train ride, they hop in a dune buggy. And of course with every stop they make there’s assassins who show up and fans get their bullets and explosions they expect.

There’s no mistaking Assassination for anything but an low-rent 80’s action flick. There’s plenty of the old clichés thrown in here. We get those tinkling music cues when there’s shots of bad guys or suspicious activity going on. Bronson has a secret agent sidekick who has the hots for him (the actress is downright awful in this by the way). Bronson and Ireland engage in forced back and forth bantering. There’s even those clunky edits right before we see close-ups of guys getting shot in the face. It’s that kind of stuff.

There are a few truly laughable things in here. When Bronson gets on a machine-gun wielding motorcycle and shoots a rocket launcher into a barn I was trying to catch my breath laughing asking, ‘where the hell did that come from???”

If there was more of those kind of ridiculous scenes Assassination might have been worthwhile. Instead there’s too many long lulls in between the spurts of action – and no one is going to care about those lulls! In the end the film wraps up so abruptly you’ll wonder if a reel got lost somewhere.

There’s nothing to see here. Assassination certainly doesn’t rival the superior In the Line of Firefor a thrilling popcorn assassination thriller. Or even some of Bronson’s other Cannon work, which are much more entertaining.